Infrared emitters are used for development and testing of infrared sensing devices. These infrared emitters can be arranged in an infrared scene display that often comprise a two dimensional array of heated elements. The heated elements emit or radiate infrared radiation. The amount of infrared radiation emitted depends upon the temperature of the infrared emitters. By individually controlling the temperature of each element or emitter in the array a scene of varying brightness in the infrared region can be produced.
An infrared scene display is divided into a two dimensional array of contiguous areas each of which contains a heated infrared radiating element. The shape of the contiguous area can be chosen to cover all of the display and can be any combination of different shapes such as squares, rectangles, triangles, hexagons, etc. The infrared emitting elements must be thoroughly insulated from each other which requires space between the elements. Thus the elements can cover only a fraction of the contiguous area. This fraction is called "fill factor". To achieve a given mean radiance, the smaller the fill factor the hotter the infrared display elements must be. The additional heat load associated with a hot display is undesirable.
It is therefore one object of the present invention to provide an infrared scene array coupling reduced area thermal emitting elements and microlenses to achieve a much enhanced performance infrared scene display.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide an infrared scene display that has an effective fill factor of substantial unity.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an infrared emitting scene display in a configuration that achieves low power dissipation. A configuration with an effective efficiency of nearly 100 percent allows the temperature of the emitting element to be relatively small.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide an infrared emitting scene display that allows individual element areas to be very small.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide an efficient infrared emitting scene display that is very compact and light weight.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide an infrared emitting scene display in which the individual element areas are small and have sufficiently large spacings between them to allow for good thermal separation of the elements.
Yet another object of the present invention is to provide an infrared emitting scene display with such very small emitters that their temperatures can be changed quickly. Yet another object of the present invention is to provide an infrared emitting scene display having an integral array of microlenses that can be produced with the use of standard microcircuit technology.